Theory and Practice in English Studies 4 (2005):

Proceedings from the Eighth Conference of British, American

and Canadian Studies. Brno: Masarykova univerzita

The Poet as Cultural Dentist: Ethnicity in the Poetry

of Jackie Kay

Pavlína Hácová

Philosophical Faculty, Palacky University, Olomouc

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The acclaimed British poet Jackie Kay (*1961) belongs to the colourful mainstream
of recent British poetry. The paper aims to survey the ethnic imagery and
consciousness Kay explores in her poems, predominantly with the images of
dentistry. Special attention will be paid to the images of cultural significance. A few
sample poems will be discussed to demostrate the constant search for identity
(inclusion vs. exclusion, assimilation vs. marginalization) and cultural heritage.
_____________________________________________________________________

Jackie Kay has been labelled as a British, Scottish, ethnic, lesbian, and diasporic writer. In
spite of the ambiguity of her categorization, the paper aims to focus on the ethnic aspect of
Kay’s poetry. In her first collection The Adoption Papers (1991) Jackie Kay uses three
speakers – birth mother, adoptive mother and the adopted childʊand examines how their
identity is being formed. Kay understands identity as constantly and flexibly changing. David
Paddy explains it in terms of process: “[In Kay’s poems] identity is regarded as a process of
choices characters make about themselves, usually in reaction to the ideas and perceptions of
others.” In Kay’s view, identity is not given to the child at birth but is acquired through
interaction with the child’s environment: “All this umbilical knot business is nonsense” (Kay
1991: “The Telling Part”, line 65). The act of adoption is not the primary focus, but it serves
as a matrix for the metaphorical discovery of the self. In The Adoption Papers, Kay is also
sensitive to cultural and racial elements:

My skin is hot as burning coal

like that time she said Darkies are like coal
in front of the whole classʊmy blood
what does she mean? … (Kay 1991: “Black Bottom”, lines 57-60)
 Pavlína Hácová

Both identity and race are social categories. In the words of Paddy, “Even as race and racism
are shown to have real effects, the poem shows race to be a matter of social perception not
skin and biology.”
The speakers in the poetry of Kay are exclusively individuals because she does not
want to advocate the collective consciousness of the black community in Britain which is at
present very diverse. As Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy have shown, the burden of representation
that rested upon ethnic writers in the 1970s was lifted, and in the 1980s and 1990s there was a
“diminishing need to speak for a singular, coherent, ‘representative’ community” (Procter
2000: 194-195). In this context, Kay’s second collection Other Lovers (1993) and especially
her third collection Off Colour (1998) explore social and racial issues with the help of
dentistry imagery. The poem “Crown and Country” shows that the condition of one’s teeth is
symptomatic of one’s social status.

When you come to our country

you will realise we are big on dentistry:
[…] our people
[…] all know dentures are more crucial
than culture. […]
We identify people by their bite.
The lower class have most unusual bites.
They are sick to the back teeth. (Kay 1998: “Crown and Country”, lines 1-2, 6-8, 13-
15)

The British consider the health of the teeth important as it either includes or excludes an
individual from the particular social class. Ironically, the white British in Kay’s poems have
to resort to false teeth whereas the black people seem to enjoy perfect teeth. The dentures of
the whites subtitute the real teeth and, according to the poet, are as false as their artificial
smiles:

We do not talk much, we say

cheese; pints of creamy gleaming teeth,
pouring out our white grins, our gold caps; smirks. (Kay 1998: “Crown and Country”,
lines 8-10)

The hypocrisy of the society and the devaluation of the culture is further signified by the fact
that the white dentists seek in their practice only their own profit.

Our dentists are the richest in the world,

mining our gobs of gold. They love the old;
the ones who finally succumb to receding gums,
to teeth falling haplessly out like hailstones. (Kay 1998: “Crown and Country”, lines
19-22)

Contrasted with the teeth of the white people are the teeth of blacks. The poem entitled
“Teeth” exemplifies this contrast amply. The poet uses three characters: a young lady, her
mother, and a white officer. The name of the young lady is not mentioned, she is referred to
as X. The reader learns in the course of the poem that the lady is an illegal immigrant, and
therefore is by the officers treated not as a human being but purely as an anonymous file
number. In sharp contrast to the cold detachment of the officer is the innocence of the lady
which is symbolized by her teeth. She “came to this country with her own teeth. / [She] has all

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 The Poet as Cultural Dentist: Ethnicity in the Poetry of Jackie Kay

her own teeth. /…/ Look into her mouth. She still has them./ Perfect pearls. Milk stones. Pure
ivory” (Kay 1998: “Teeth”, lines 36; 1;3-4). Her teeth are her true treasure which the white
people envy. Kay recurrently compares the teeth of the black people to ivory – the valuable
merchandise of the colonial past of the black continent. At the same time, the image of teeth
being ivory relates the speaker to her African cultural heritage. The image of teeth – the
perfect pearls – the natural jewel, has the quality of a cultural icon. However, the mother of
the lady uses her teeth not as jewel but as a means of protection and even as a metaphorical
weapon. Unlike her daughter, she wears

… false teeth. Tusks,

badly fitted, [which] left something unsaid
— a tiny gap between tooth and gum.
Her mum’s teeth, in a glass tumbler, swam
at night: a shark’s grin; a wolf’s slow smirk. (Kay 1998: “Teeth”, lines 8-12)

Kay utilizes the teeth of the mother to give her the metaphorical role of a shark or a wolf that
fights to protect those of her kin. The white officer arrests and humiliates the young lady by
taping her mouth and therefore hiding her “lively /smile” (Kay 1998: “Teeth”, lines 6-7). The
lively smile is an attribute that makes her look innocent. The officer overpowers her only
when he silences her by killing her. Bruce King argues “Someone with good teeth is rejected,
treated as an alien, and subjected to violence” (1994: 580). Kay contrasts the two characters in
the following way: whereas the lady is innocent, the officer is a liar which is shown by his
unhealthy teeth:

Lies will roll

tomorrow. The man with the abscess
will say she had a weak heart. (Kay 1998: “Teeth”, lines 37-38)

The image of the teeth acquires another significance in the poem entitled “Black Chair”. The
main character of this poem uses her teeth to find a lover: “every cavity [is] an excuse for
meeting” (line 29). The patient in the chair at the dentist’s falls into a dream in which the
doctor transforms into a lover. Yet, her dream does not materialize and her teeth only initiate
her search for a new identity:

I’ll look at my own teeth on the white screen

They tell me nothing about my self.
My teeth, speechless.
Rootless pearls, anonymous white things.
I need you to tell me about myself. (Kay 1998: “Black Chair”, lines 41-45)

Although the teeth are rootless pearls, they change from the anonymous white things into
signifiers of the self only when considered as a means of communication. The teeth should
initiate the dentist to explore the qualities of the person who possesses them. In return the
black person will speak as well, in particular she will use “the language of ivory” (Kay 1998:
“Black Chair”, line 7). Such a language clearly refers to the black cultural heritage and to the
black continent. In addition, it displays awareness of the individual’s ethnic roots.
A similar image of teeth, supported by the typical African facial physiognomy, is
explored in the poem “Pride” which concludes the collection The Adoption Papers. Identity is
visible on the face, which betrays not only the colour of skin but which is also the hallmark
for inclusion in or exclusion from a particular social group. At the same time, the face

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 Pavlína Hácová

functions as a shorthand for cultural identity. The poem “Pride” depicts two strangers who
meet on the train in England and realize immediately from their anthropological features that
they share the same ethnic background: “the stranger and I looking at each other / a look that
was like something being given / from one to the other” (Kay 1998: “Pride”, lines 8-10). The
moment of journey plays an important role as well. There is not only the physical movement
of the train but during the journey they in their minds travel back to Africa, to their tribe of
Ibo:
The night train boasted and whistled
through the English countryside,
There was a moment when
my whole face changed into a map,
and the stranger on the train
located even the name
of my village in Nigeria
in the lower part of my jaw. (Kay 1998: “Pride”, lines 22-23,34-39)

Physical affinity gives the two strangers a sense of belonging. Kay engages once again the
image of the teeth:

Those teeth are Ibo teeth,’ the stranger said,

that Ibo teeth are perfect pearls.
I smiled my newly acquired Ibo smile,
flashed my gleaming Ibo teeth.
‘Faults? No faults. Not a single one.’ (Kay 1998: “Pride”, lines 26,30, 66-67,69)

Kay keeps clear-cut the distinction between white and black. In the poem “Pride”, the
exploration of identity that is based on the imagery of teeth, leads to concern with nationality.
Kay is proud of her mixed Scottish and Nigerian background. She links her African descend
to her Scottish nationality as she compares Scottish clans to African tribes – both sharing the
pride of their respective cultures:

His [the stranger’s] face had a look

I’ve seen on a MacLachlan, a MacDonnell, a MacLeod,
the most startling thing, pride. (Kay 1998: “Pride”, lines 51-53)

However, Kay does not see the identity of the characters as either black or white. She has
stated in an interview: “I consider myself a Scottish writer, in the sense that I am, and I
consider myself a black writer, in the sense that I am, and a woman writer, in the sense that I
am” (Severin 2002).
To sum up, Jackie Kay in her poetry proves that identity is complex and defies simple
definition. David Paddy notes that “[Kay] attempts to show again and again in her work that
identity is always at a crossroads of nation, race, gender, sexuality, and class, and that no
person bears the privilege of being more pure than anyone else. Moreover, Kay’s characters
do not suffer from identity crises for being Black and Scottish, adopted, or transgendered.”
Images taken from the lexical field of dentistry exemplify the cultural and therefore ethnic
awareness of the British society. The teeth become symbols of either cultural inclusion or
exclusion, of assimiliation or marginalisation. Whereas the white pride themselves with false
teeth, dentures, the blacks usually possess perfect pearls of natural origin. Kay uses the image
of teeth as a symbol that distinguishes the blacks from the white British. Reflecting the

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 The Poet as Cultural Dentist: Ethnicity in the Poetry of Jackie Kay

meanings of the image of teeth, Jackie Kay discovers the constantly changing identity of an
individual coming from a culturally and racially mixed background.

Works Cited:

Gilroy, Paul (1988-9) ‘Crucialty and the Frog’s Perspective: An Agenda of Difficulties for the
Black Arts Movement in Britain’ Third Text 5: 33-44.
Hall Stuart (1988) ‘New Ethnicities’ Black Film/British Cinema, ICA Document 7: 27-31,
Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Kay, Jackie (1991) The Adoption Papers, Newcastle upon Tyne Bloodaxe.
Kay, Jackie (1993) Other Lovers, Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe.
Kay, Jackie (1998) Off Colour, Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe.
King, Bruce (1994) ‘Other Lovers by Jackie Kay’ World Literature Today 68: 580.
Paddy, David Ian. ‘Jackie Kay’. EBSCOhost. Online Database. Oct 11, 2004
<http://www.LitEncyc.com>.
Procter, James (ed) (2000) Writing Black Britain 1948-1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology,
Manchester: Manchester UP.
Severin, Laura (Spring 2002) ‘Interview’ Free Verse. 18 Nov. 2004. <http://english.
chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives(Spring_2002)/Interviews/intervies.htm> .

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